I broke down and bought some scales to weigh my poured balls. I know a .530 ball should weigh 224 grains but I notice that balls I have poured vary in weight a few grains. My question is, How far off should the weight be before culling the ball and putting it back in the pot to be re melted.
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Weighing Roundballs
- Thread starter Wayne/Al
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jamesthomas
70 Cal.
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I keep mine + or - 1 gr. for a 2 grain difference.
I keep them within 1 grain, but I think that's just an over-thinking mental thing (sometimes we tend to get carried away with these things). In reality, the two grain difference used by Armakiller is fine for the average shooter. The main reason for weighing balls is to cull out the ones with voids. Voids in projectiles will cause flyers. Have fun. Bill
A round lead sphere of .530 diameter is 224 grains, but a cast roundball may be a tad more because of the sprue. Point being, you need to set your "keep" range from what might be 225 or 226 grains depending on how much sprue you have.
As an example, I have recently been casting .610 balls and I find the "full" weight with a good sprue to be 345 grains. A perfect sphere of lead in that size is 342 grains. My parameters is 1.5 grains, so I keep anything 343.5 grains to 345.
So my point is to be sure to make your "keep" decision off the weight of a good ball from your mold, not necessarily the given weight of a perfect sphere.
As an example, I have recently been casting .610 balls and I find the "full" weight with a good sprue to be 345 grains. A perfect sphere of lead in that size is 342 grains. My parameters is 1.5 grains, so I keep anything 343.5 grains to 345.
So my point is to be sure to make your "keep" decision off the weight of a good ball from your mold, not necessarily the given weight of a perfect sphere.
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It might be interesting to mic and then melt some of your light balls. Usually voids will be under the sprue but they can show up if the ball has some debris in it. Mike D.
ohio ramrod
75 Cal.
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Like others I remelt any more than 1 grain under my desired weight. :idunno:
I have been weighing my cast balls and bullets for years. Now I buy the balls and I have even weighed them. I think I used to go one over and under. It was a good winter project and I quit getting the occasional shot way out of the group.
Geo. T.
Geo. T.
Spikebuck brings up a good point for anyone new to weighing balls or bullets. On paper, your .530 ball should weigh 224 grains, but in reality it might be slightly different. Sprues, different lead alloys, molds slightly out of dimension, even varying lead temps will give you balls that vary from the charted weight. I suggest you forget all about what your balls are supposed to weigh, and find the actual average weight and go from there.
Here's how I do it. First, I go through the batch of balls and throw out the obvious bad ones (wrinkles, holes, flanged lines, etc). Then I weigh random samples, looking to find some kind of average. When I think I have a good average, say 229.5 grains for a .535 ball, I use that for my standard. From there, I decide what the limits will be. That means with a one grain limit, any ball that weighs between 229 and 230 will be acceptable. Now, if during the weighing process you find that you are culling out a bunch of balls weighing around 228.7 grains and not keeping very many weighing around 229.9, you might want to reevaluate your standard, and make it around 229.3. Not as complicated as it sounds, lol. If all this works out in the end, keep the 229.3 as your standard to shoot for during your next casting sessions.
It's the same process if you opt for a less narrow weight limit, such as + or - one grain from your standard, which is a two grain variance.
Hope all this makes sense :grin: . Bill
Here's how I do it. First, I go through the batch of balls and throw out the obvious bad ones (wrinkles, holes, flanged lines, etc). Then I weigh random samples, looking to find some kind of average. When I think I have a good average, say 229.5 grains for a .535 ball, I use that for my standard. From there, I decide what the limits will be. That means with a one grain limit, any ball that weighs between 229 and 230 will be acceptable. Now, if during the weighing process you find that you are culling out a bunch of balls weighing around 228.7 grains and not keeping very many weighing around 229.9, you might want to reevaluate your standard, and make it around 229.3. Not as complicated as it sounds, lol. If all this works out in the end, keep the 229.3 as your standard to shoot for during your next casting sessions.
It's the same process if you opt for a less narrow weight limit, such as + or - one grain from your standard, which is a two grain variance.
Hope all this makes sense :grin: . Bill
Don Steele
45 Cal.
I use a +/- 0.5gn. interval for my 50 cal roundballs. Too tight...?? Most likely. I've spoken to some excellent shooters with much more experience than I have who keep everything within 3 gns. For me, the whole ball-weighing exercise is part of my mental prep. for shooting more than anything. It eliminates an unknown variable. If I get a "wild" shot...the question of "was that an off-weight ball..?" is off the table. At the end of the day, I'm sure I'm waaayyyy overthinking this thing and being waaayyyy too anally retentive but that's how I do it. :wink: :wink:
FWIW: when I shot NRA High Power rifle, I weighed and sorted the 168 gn. Sierra Matchking bullets I was using too. Sorted cases also, the whole package. :youcrazy: :youcrazy:
FWIW: when I shot NRA High Power rifle, I weighed and sorted the 168 gn. Sierra Matchking bullets I was using too. Sorted cases also, the whole package. :youcrazy: :youcrazy:
Part of the question is how good of a shooter are you? What are you shooting? Will a grain or two make a difference in your point of impact?
If you are a paper puncher and shooting for the 10X from the bench it is a must to have good RB's. If you shoot off hand you will biggest accuracy factor not how much your balls weight.
If you are only shooting hanging steel targets that are x number of inches big you dont have too much to worry about.
Fleener
If you are a paper puncher and shooting for the 10X from the bench it is a must to have good RB's. If you shoot off hand you will biggest accuracy factor not how much your balls weight.
If you are only shooting hanging steel targets that are x number of inches big you dont have too much to worry about.
Fleener
Well I have come up with an average weight of 227 grains. With that weight as my standard I am culling about 50% of what I am pouring. BTW I am pouring .530 balls for my .54 cal.and culling anything +or- 1 grain.
FWIW before I started all this weighing stuff at 50 yards I could hold about a 3" group with about two flyers out of 10 shots one of the flyers almost always the first shot.
I'm not shooting competition. Just a group of old boys getting together and having fun. We shoot paper targets and gongs . All of us over 65 and retired. I haven't shot any of these weighed balls yet. Next wed I'll give it a try and see if it makes any difference. Thanks for all the response.
Wayne/Al
FWIW before I started all this weighing stuff at 50 yards I could hold about a 3" group with about two flyers out of 10 shots one of the flyers almost always the first shot.
I'm not shooting competition. Just a group of old boys getting together and having fun. We shoot paper targets and gongs . All of us over 65 and retired. I haven't shot any of these weighed balls yet. Next wed I'll give it a try and see if it makes any difference. Thanks for all the response.
Wayne/Al
fleener said:
It's not just the weight. It's the distribution of the weight...air pockets hidden in the ball. This causes the "flyer" more than if it were just two completely solid balls and one weighed a couple grains less than another.
Sunkmanitu Tanka
45 Cal.
+ 1 on this take ... I weigh the balls and reject those that are more than one grain light or heavy compared with their 'theorethical' weight. Then I sort them in small divider boxes, all balls of 132.5 grains together, all balls of 132.6 grains etc ... When I go to the range I take a set of balls which have all the same weight... Given 13 shots to one target, they are all shot with balls of the same weight. Another target might be shot with a set of balls of a different weight, but that doesn't matter...
Billnpatti
Cannon
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If you are shooting from a bench, you will probably notice a difference between balls that you weigh and those that you don't. When you are shooting from a bench, you are rock steady and differences in powder, ball, patch and lube become quite apparent. But, when you are shooting off hand, unless you are an exceptional shooter, your natural wibbbles and wobbles will be greater than any difference you can see in the variations in ball weight. Having said such a grand sweeping statement as that, I am assuming that you know your oats about casting balls and are using proper technique. If you are, then you will find only small (plus or minus only a very few grains) variation in your balls. If you are a novice at casting balls, you may need to weigh them because you will quite likely have a much greater variation in ball weight due to getting air bubbles inside some of the balls. These balls can often be light by 10 grains or so and this can cause fliers. I am also making the assumption that you are using a consistent alloy when casting balls. If you start out with soft lead in your pot and as you use up the lead in the pot and add some more lead to it, if that lead isn't the same alloy as what you had in the pot to begin with, the weight of the resultant balls can change as can their diameter.
So, if you are an experienced caster and do your casting in a methodical and consistant way, your resultant balls will not vary enough to be worth weighing providing that you are shooting off hand because any variation in ball weight will be more than hidden by your natural wibbles and wobbles. On the other hand, if you are a national match champion who is shooting for a title in a major match, by all means, weigh each ball and keep it within no more than plus or minus 0.5 grains because you are good enough that you can tell the difference in ball weight variations of a grain or so. But for us average shooters, I don't think we are good enough at shooting off hand to tell the difference if a ball varies by as much as 5 grains either way.
Believe me when I tell you that I am a devout believer in the Dutch Schoultz accuracy system and I hightly recommend it to anyone who aspires to wring the maximum accuracy from their rifle. But it is designed to find the exact load that will make your rifle shoot as accurately as it is capable of. But, his shooting is done from a bench. Once you have found that perfect load, your limitation will be you not your rifle. So, if you have all of the variables under control per the Schoultz method and you are an average shooter shooting offhand, a slight variation of a few grains in ball weight will not be noticeable on your target. But if all of them are out of control, you surely will notice a great difference on your target
So, if you are an experienced caster and do your casting in a methodical and consistant way, your resultant balls will not vary enough to be worth weighing providing that you are shooting off hand because any variation in ball weight will be more than hidden by your natural wibbles and wobbles. On the other hand, if you are a national match champion who is shooting for a title in a major match, by all means, weigh each ball and keep it within no more than plus or minus 0.5 grains because you are good enough that you can tell the difference in ball weight variations of a grain or so. But for us average shooters, I don't think we are good enough at shooting off hand to tell the difference if a ball varies by as much as 5 grains either way.
Believe me when I tell you that I am a devout believer in the Dutch Schoultz accuracy system and I hightly recommend it to anyone who aspires to wring the maximum accuracy from their rifle. But it is designed to find the exact load that will make your rifle shoot as accurately as it is capable of. But, his shooting is done from a bench. Once you have found that perfect load, your limitation will be you not your rifle. So, if you have all of the variables under control per the Schoultz method and you are an average shooter shooting offhand, a slight variation of a few grains in ball weight will not be noticeable on your target. But if all of them are out of control, you surely will notice a great difference on your target
Sunkmanitu Tanka
45 Cal.
I shoot a Frontier with fixed sights - so no, I do not change sights. I do check each shot and adjust aiming point when and if needed. The point is that I try to create equal shooting basics for every (13 shot) target I go for ... Like Dutch Schoultz advocates: no loose ends, equal loads, identical patches, etc etc ... from then on its up to you and the wind...
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I would find the maximum weight of any individual lot you cast... and then set your parameters...for example, if you find the heaviest weighed ball to be 230gr this would be where to start...go down -1 gr and keep these for your most accurate shooting....the heaviest weight balls will be the ones with the least imperfections! Then you can decide to either melt em back down or separate em into lots like Sunkmanitu Tanka mentioned...this is the way I do it because I don't want my labor to be wasted! :v
Commercial swaged balls? baxter
Sunkmanitu Tanka
45 Cal.
I bought them for quite some time. When I finally (and just out of curiosity) weighed them, I found that they also had a severe differences in weight! I stopped buying (expensive) swaged balls and started melting my own... I now sort them by weight as explained earlier and never looked back. And it's not only more precise, it's also cheaper and more fun...
